Feeling sorry for myself
So I was sitting in my family room, half watching NYPD reruns and trying to catch up on some blogs I haven't read in a while. I was feeling sorry for myself because I will be flying on the next two Sundays for business. I work a lot of hours (way too many if you ask my wife) and I travel a lot. It is all just part of my job. But I have a general rule that I don't work on Sundays unless it is my own fault, which happens occasionally but not very often. I work at night, sometimes all night. I usually put in a few hours on most Saturdays and more than a few on some. I don't work on Sundays. Poor me.I then made the mistake of hitting some milbogs one of which (sorry, I was on rapid fire and don't remember who) pointed me to BlackFive's favorites list. Half an hour and a dozen blogs later and I am kinda pissed at myself. While I sit here on my cozy couch reading blogs on my company owned computer on my high speed wireless Internet access in my air conditioned home petting my little dog who is happily sleeping next to me, these guys are in 115 degree heat half the world away because some politician decided they should be there, away from their families for months on end. Oh, and as though that doesn't sound like fun, they are getting shot at and wondering which car on the side of the road they travel down is rigged to blow up. Most of them don't make what my wife racks up on the credit card every month yet alone my mortgage payment.
So I got to thinking, to whom do I owe a debt of gratitude for doing a job that I haven't or wouldn't do.
Clearly, the folks, including some of my buddies from high school and many of my neighbors and coworkers, who either are or have been in the military. Nobody in my generation has been drafted so most of the ones I know signed up voluntarily. They did so not knowing where they would get sent in times of peace yet alone war. They knowingly put themselves in a position where some President, who hasn't been elected yet so they don't know what party or sanity he will represent, can decide that we are going to war (or Police Action) and they will be put in harms way, whether they think we should be there or not. They do so knowing that they will get crap pay, bad hours, moved hither and yon, and give up many things that they are there to protect for the rest of us, not the least of which is the freedom of political speech. God Bless them every one.
Cops always come up when we think about this topic. My Uncle is one. I wouldn't be able to do his job. Not the part where he might get shot at by some lunatic bank robber, I think I could do that part. The fear of not knowing which driver that you pull over for speeding or a bad tail light is going to take a pot shot at you would bother me but I think I could get through it. Domestic violence calls would send me over the edge of sanity. When I was in high school I was at a buddy's house whose father happened to be a cop. He came home while we were stuffing our faces and watching MTV (which was new at the time). He was in a mood I had never seen him in. Eventually his wife pulled out of him that he had been on a call where they walked in on a guy raping an 18 month old child, his own child. They took the guy in unscathed. I don't think I could do that. I think he would have to die resisting arrest. Thank a cop. They appreciate it.
Firemen. I think I could do that job but I have great respect for people who do. While I think I could do it, walking into a burning building I don't own is somewhat daunting. And they live for days at the fire house. I travel for business but I like being home with the wife and dogs and I am here more than I am not. When I am not I am in a nice hotel somewhere at night calling the wife and dogs not stuffed in a bunk in a concrete building wondering how much sleep I will get before I have to go step into a burning building.
EMT. Most people overlook the folks who ride around in ambulances until they need one. I tried to get a summer job doing this in college but because I wasn't 21 (the minimum age to drive the ambulance where I grew up) I couldn't get into the training. Say a little prayer of thanks for the professionals who will walk into unknown circumstances to save your life for mediocre pay. They see some pretty gruesome things regularly and occasionally walk into very dangerous circumstances, unarmed, to do their job.
Small Farmers. This one is almost always overlooked. Been there, done that, have the T-shirts. I got an education so I didn't have to do it for a living the rest of my life. They work harder than any other group in America, IMO. They do so for a sustenance living if they are lucky. Their work means that we pay a smaller percentage of our income for food than anywhere else in the world. And, to boot, they provide a better product and a wider variety of choices than anywhere else in the world. They are dying breed. Most of their children, like me, are not carrying on that tradition. Corporate farms have taken over. But even there, the farm worker is making beans and working his butt off. Think about that at dinner time.
Family restaurant owners. I love good food and almost everywhere I go the best food is some little hole in the wall joint that is family run and the prices are entirely reasonable. 5 star restaurants are for people who have too much money (or want to act like they do) and want to impress, family restaurants are where people who enjoy food go. They work 6 or 7 days a week, 14+ hours a day to give us that little pleasure.
The guys who actually pave roads and patch potholes. I am not talking about the 15 guys who watch him work. I am talking about the one poor guy on the bottom of the totem pole who actually does the work. I don't mind the cold but I hate the heat. Messing with hot asphalt in the beating summer sun strikes me as a terrible job.
I could go on but I have to make my travel plans and pet my dog and quit feeling sorry for myself.
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